Tell us about how you were first bitten by the theatre bug.
It happened when I was a child – I watched Act 3 plays and was involved in Act 3 theatre classes. It was something that made me happy. Watching a staging of The Grasshopper and the Ant when I was 5 or 6 really made me fall in love with theatre.
After two months of drawing and painting as part of SOTA’s visual arts course, I realised how much I regretted not studying theatre. So I requested for an audition and made the switch. That’s the best decision I’ve ever made. When I was 16, I performed Hamlet and I was terrible. I told myself I would perform Hamlet again, but way better the next time. I’m working towards that now in LASALLE, where I’m studying for a BA in Acting.
How have you been involved in theatre over the years?
Most of the theatre work I’ve done has been in SOTA, where I had the privilege to work with some amazing directors, create original works and meet other like-minded individuals. After finishing NS, I worked on a production called Every Singaporean Daughter by UNSAID and did Body of Land with some incredible SOTA students as part of the 2016 M1 Peer Pleasure Youth Theatre Festival.
So what would you say are some of the more memorable experiences you’ve had as an artist and theatre-maker?
One of my most memorable experiences is performing a solo piece called My Green Thumb, which I created to commemorate the passing of my grandfather. Directing, writing and acting in a piece was a challenging but very rewarding process. Being able to connect with others by sharing my experiences about the death of a loved one was quite cathartic, and really made me appreciate the theatre as a place of giving and receiving. I’d never felt so connected to an audience before.
I’ve also done some playback work in the Philippines. With a group of friends, I went for workshops and lessons with Tapestry Playback Theatre in Singapore. Equipped with these skills, we visited a rural community in Cebu and conducted workshops that dealt with the issue of corporal punishment. It was an incredible experience – through our art, we touched many of the women and children who attended the session. They opened up and shared personal stories that we then performed, allowing them to reflect and gain some sort of closure or new perspective on their own lives.
How did you come to join young & W!LD?
My teacher from SOTA, Sean Tobin, told me about it. W!LD RICE is a household name in the local theatre scene, and I thought young & W!LD would be a great opportunity for me to learn and grow as an artist.
(Pictured with Nisa Syarafana bte Awang & Zulfiqar Izzudin bin Zainudin)
Over the past few months, you’ve been working with your programme directors and fellow participants in young & W!LD, and staged an invitation-only showcase – When S#!T Hits The Fam. What was that experience like?
That was a crazy experience! It was our first production together as an ensemble, so we were learning everyone’s strengths and weaknesses along the way. As a completely devised show, we had to learn to let things go if they were not working out, and put our heads together to think of something new – trust me, that happened fairly often.
I remember performing what we had for Ivan a week before our actual showcase, and it was a real wake-up call – we realised that we needed to get our S#!T together and make some much needed changes. So we worked hard and eventually put up a show that was genuinely from our hearts.
I think a major takeaway from that experience was to be receptive to change. Sometimes, an idea or scene just might not work the way you want it to and that’s okay. You can always think of something stronger and better.
What’s next for you?
Another devised piece with young & W!LD – one that we’re hoping will be more holistic and less episodic than our first showcase.
